This song is so intriguing to me. I totally get it, and have lived my life sometimes like these lyrics- “It’s just me, myself, and I…I don’t need a hand to hold, I’ve got that fire in my soul.”
I totally get it. Because to be perfectly honest with you- people are just plain crazy sometimes. I seem to have a number of stories about things I did for someone else but they literally wrote me off for it- told me I was crazy, a bad friend, disinvited me to their wedding… craziness! And I have honestly spent thousands of hours in my life just me and my piano, playing away the heartache, confusion, and emotions of the day. And I totally agree, sometimes it feels like that’s all that I need.
“I don’t need anything to get me through the night cuz that music fills me good and it gets me every time.” I wish it were true, but it’s just plain not. And for everyone that fights through their field and works it all out by themselves, they eventually realize it’s not worth it alone. Obviously, it’s not worth it for fake acquaintances and pretend connections. But sometimes, you have to fight yourself to let the good people in.
I keep hearing people talking about setting boundaries and realizing that some people are only in your life for a season. That’s totally true, but we cannot let that be an excuse for us to walk away from everyone. Sometimes you have to let go of all the fears and all the pain and all the hurts that you kept locked up so no one else would screw you over. You can only make it so far on your own- you have to trust again.
Because the one thing that your music, and your dreams, and your resolve will never give you is a friend. They are the driving horse that makes things happen and listen intently when you’ve got something to say. But they will never be able to reply. Never be able to comfort. Never be able to truly heal what once was. They can feel like a balm, but they will not get to the source of the pain. The only way to do that is to forgive, and love, and trust yet again. Regardless of how many times it failed in the past, regardless of what they said or did back then, regardless of how unfair or unjust or ridiculous it was.
When it’s all said and done, unforgiveness and mistrust will only hurt you. I had a patient on a missions trip one time who made me so nervous. He walked in looking ill- he was almost six feet tall but maybe 130 pounds. He cautiously lowered himself down to the chair and began to tell me about the horrible months of stomach pain and vomiting and fevers he was having- how he couldn’t eat anymore and the pain was unreal. And my medical knowledge told me he had pancreatic cancer and maybe 2 months to live, and I had literally nothing in our makeshift clinic that could help him. But I started praying- wasn’t there anything I could do? And God told me he needed to forgive someone. And from a medical perspective- what difference would that make? He would still have cancer, and would still have pain, and that wouldn’t change the way things were. But amazingly, even science is starting to see the effects our emotions have on our lives. And luckily, when you invite God into a problem, He doesn’t leave them the way they are. So when this man finally said that he forgave that problem from so long ago, the entire atmosphere of the room changed, and God actually healed him.
It’s something that your music, and your solitude, and your pain can never do- heal. They can be a salve, a warm balm for the moment, a great help in a hard time, but they cannot change your life and get rid of the pain. Never once have they made me apologize to a friend even though I didn’t do anything wrong. Never once have they made me walk up to the couple that wrote me out of their lives and love them again. Never once have they permanently taken away the loneliness and pain that we all experience from time to time. There’s a time and a place for solitude and reflection. But we have to keep in mind, that they can get me through the night, but only God can change what was into something greater than you realized it could be.
Philippians 3:13b-14- But one thing I do: forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called be heavenward in Christ Jesus.